Re: Carl Sagan's Contact (was: My Review A.I. the Movie (total sp oiler I hope))

From: spike66 (spike66@attglobal.net)
Date: Fri Mar 08 2002 - 22:11:56 MST


hal@finney.org <mailto:hal@finney.org> wrote:

>It's also hard to see how anyone could put a message into Pi. That
>is such a simply defined number, how could it have a message? It's
>almost provably impossible. It would make more sense to put a message
>into Newton's gravitational constant G, something physical rather than
>mathematical.
>
G is unit dependent, and so its value arbitrary.

There could be a hidden message in the ratio of mass of the electron
to the proton however. Then the message would sit there uninterpreted
for eons until some intelligent lifeform figured out a way to measure those
masses with extraordinary precision. Perhaps some other unitless
value would do, such as the fine structure constant. spike



This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:12:52 MST